Rheingold
by MaggieMerc
Summary: "Tell me Regina, didn't you ever wonder why your curse rescued me from Wonderland?" He leans in close. The jagged scar around his neck undulates as he swallows. "Didn't you ever wonder why I alone kept my memories?"


**Title: **Rheingold

**Author: **Maggiemerc

**Rating: **T

**Fandom: **Once Upon A Time

**Pairing:** Evil Queen|Regina and Mad Hatter|Jefferson

**Spoilers:** Up through Manhattan just to be safe. Though really this just occurs anytime after the curse breaks.

**Disclaimer:** Guys if I owned them this would be canon. Clearly they belong to others. No foul intended.

**Summary: **"Tell me Regina, didn't you ever wonder why your curse rescued me from Wonderland?" He leans in close. The jagged scar around his neck undulates as he swallows. "Didn't you ever wonder why I alone kept my memories?"

**Author's Note: **Whaaaat? Me writing straight lovin' without a hint of sapphic sex? I know. I'm stunned too. But these two are all kinds of electric and I just want them to be together forever.

**Rheingold**

"Tell me Regina, didn't you ever wonder why your curse rescued me from Wonderland?" He leans in close. The jagged scar around his neck undulates as he swallows. "Didn't you ever wonder why I alone kept my memories?"

No.

She hadn't.

####

It was an affair. Not quite love. It could never **be** love. She was reserved and quick to anger and he was cruel and selfish. They met each other's needs. Found pleasure in one another's company. He'd slip into the palace and into her bed and she'd welcome him with a throaty laugh and a languid kiss.

The next morning he'd be gone. Sometimes he'd leave a trinket. Refuse from his journey. "For your time," he'd say coyly and her features would darken with offense even as her lips curled into a pleased smile.

But he started to come more and more often.

"I'm just thanking you for this handy passport."

But it was more than that. He'd spy her when she was all alone. She would always be looking at some fixed point no one else could see. The corners of her mouth turned down into not quite a frown. People would speak and she'd nod politely but the melancholia would be there. Just below the surface.

And then he'd walk in and tip his hat and bow with flourish. A trinket given to her stepdaughter would send the girl away with joyous laughter and leave them all alone.

He started to marvel the way her face changed in his presence. He alone could bring a genuine smile to those lips. It became an addiction. His words became less cruel, his compliments more florid. Anything for that smile that seemed to make her younger. Turn her into that girl queen he met in Rumpelstiltskin's lab. The girl he'd helped turn into a monster.

A gentle kiss seemed to defeat the monster. Turn back time.

"Come away," he'd murmur into the crook of her neck where she smelled of apples and cloves.

"I cannot leave the palace." Her words were whispered in his ear. Always soft.

His hand would graze her breast through the ornate gowns she wore. "I travel between worlds. Your magic boundary is nothing."

And she'd gasp into his mouth. His tongue would slip into hers. Fingers would tug at fabrics. Teeth would nip at flesh. Hands would catch the moans of pleasure.

"Yes," she'd cry with each thrust. "Yes, I'll go," she'd finally sigh.

But she never went.

He asked five times. The sixth time he came to take her away he found her missing.

"My mother's travelled to her father's home," her step-daughter said. She didn't even look up from her doll. Didn't stop to consider how she was only a few years younger and that the relationship they had was unlike any other mother and daughter's. "He's very ill."

But he was not ill. His eyes were downcast when he arrived. "She'll have no visitors," he warned.

"She'll have me," he insisted.

And her father looked up sharply. There was anger there that quickly flitted behind a mask of appeasement. "Yes," he said stiffly, "of course."

She sagged in his arms when he found her. Wept until the tears soaked through his coat and vest and shirt too. He could feel the words before she sobbed them into his chest and his hands tightened around her arms.

"We'll flee."

"Is that a life for our daughter?"

"Your husband will kill us both."

"If he knows," she said, "but he will not."

They planned and planned and fell into the bed where the only comfort was a tender hug too sweet to ever be shared between such monsters.

"Is it really—" he started to ask. His hand almost went to her belly, but paused.

She caught it. Pressed it against the silk bodice. "A girl."

"How?"

"A sorceress knows." A playful smile for the deadly game they played.

Their daughter arrives nearly eight months later. When he holds their perfect daughter and her father runs to fetch more water she pulls the heart from the midwife's chest. "Tell no one," she whispers into the bright and pulsating flesh. She squeezes for emphasis and the old woman moans in pain, but collects her things.

She pauses beside him. Looks at his daughter. "What a lovely girl," she says, "when was she born?"

Behind him she pulls herself up from the bed.

He wants to tell her to rest, but she'll have none of it. She shuffles across the stone floor, her gown falling biliously around her legs. She sets the still glowing heart in an open box at her desk.

"She'll keep our secret," she promises. "She has no choice."

He wonders how long she's had the box. And cannot help notice how its everything and nothing like the ones her mother kept.

He goes to her and kisses the top of her head and puts their daughter in her arms. The girl has fair hair, like his mother, but her eyes are as brown as hers. Unnatural for a baby perhaps.

Her features soften. Her breath comes shakily and he holds her steady. Her thumbs strokes the girl's angry red skin. "She's ours," she says breathlessly.

And there are no words.

She returns to the castle a week later. He finds her dressing and pausing every few moments to smile contentedly at their daughter in her bassinet.

"You will stay here," she commands. "You'll want for nothing."

He bristles at the order. "When have I ever wanted?"

Her smile in the mirror is lusty and sly.

"She can travel with me. No one will ask when I bring her to the castle."

"Please." Her eyes water briefly. She is never quick to tears. They must be earned and it would appear the only price is the idea of losing him and their daughter. "Stay."

"Will you visit?"

She turns from the mirror and he takes in her every facet. The way her bosom overflows from the gown and her skin seems radiant and he's never wanted that precious smile of hers more.

"Always."

It's a promise that spans more than a few months in her father's home. It's a pact. One he's never thought to make with anyone. Especially not the married queen.

They come together for the first time in a month and her dress is torn and his trousers are ripped and they lie naked and satisfied in her bed and he licks sweat from her breast as she pants his name.

And he wonders if this is what love is. And if so then why is he condemned to love one he can never possess?

She dresses in another gown and kneels to kiss their daughter softly. She takes her in her arms and comes to the bed and places her gently on his bare chest.

Is love this moment?

And why does it hurt?

"I'll be back soon."

But before she comes again he finds Rumpelstiltskin in the garden staring at her favorite tree. She used to pluck apples from it and carved them with a thought and placed them on his lips before bending down to steal a kiss.

"How domestic," the Dark One crows. "The mad little hatter in love with an evil queen."

He scowls and demands to know why his former employer has come.

"A job."

His daughter is sleeping in the house, swaddled and near the fire to stay warm.

"I'm not in that line of work anymore."

"No. Of course not. You're a nanny for a bastard."

He wants to charge into the man's space, but he's seen what Rumpelstiltskin is capable of. And the Dark One laughs at the anger that flourishes and subsides as quickly.

"Hatred doesn't become you."

"You should leave."

"Not until you do what I ask."

"And what do you ask?"

"That you collect some gold for me. Not much. A trifle really." He smiles and he's unsettled by it. There is no more evil smile in all the lands he's seen. "Do this for me and you'll be…free."

He sees so clearly in his mind a life with her and their daughter. They travel to other worlds. They love deeply. They beat back the monsters churning in their chests and raise a daughter purer than driven snow. They are. Happy.

He agrees and Rumpelstiltskin elaborates and then, almost politely suggests, "You should take her with you you know. Magic will come in handy with this one."

He's a fool because he agree with the suggestion. He slips into her bedchamber that night eager to tell her of his plan. A way for them to escape. A way for them to be more.

And he finds her husband in her bed.

Is it the same sensation? Having the heart plucked from the chest by a grinning sorceress? He slinks into the shadows but the wet glint of her eyes catches his and he watches. He watches her and sees her die with each grunt and thrust.

It's a wife's duty.

It's a queen's duty.

And it's killing her.

He sinks to the ground and his head thumps silently against the wall and the pain is relief. And then the king rolls off and they talk of court and she sounds like the woman who bore his child but how can she be? Not with those dead eyes.

The king falls asleep soon after and he closes his eyes and tries to think of anything but the murder that would be so simple to commit.

A hand, damp and clean, touches his. He peers out from between his arms to find her there, dressed in a dark silk robe with her hair cascading down her shoulders and grief he can barely fathom in her eyes.

She leans in to kiss him but he turns away. He can smell the king even though he knows she's clean and he can see him there in the bed over there. It's all he can see.

And he hates himself for it.

There is the sound of fabric whispering over skin and she sits across from him, her knees touching his. She mimics his pose, gathering her arms around her knees and resting her chin on them. Her one hand reaches a little further. Her small finger brushes his. They intertwine.

And the two of them stare at one another and make no effort to find words that could not help them.

He slips into her wardrobe when the room turns gray with morning light. And she slips back into the bed. The king wakes an hour later and tells her he has missed her and is glad her father is well and then he kisses her chastely on the lips and leaves her all alone.

It is as though she forgets he's there. She lies back flat on the bed and covers her face with her arm and he thinks he sees a sob and then a laugh and then she is still.

He creeps from his hiding place and comes to stand over her.

"Come away with me," he says.

"I've only just come back. I cannot—"

He kneels next to her and tries not to vomit at the smell of sweat and cologne that covers the sheets. "Please. We can go anywhere."

"You know I can't. Neither of them would be pleased."

The husband whose head he'd gladly smash against the floor and the employer with a silver tongue and skin of gold.

"Then just come with me today. I've got a job and it needs magic."

She's suspicious. "He asked you?"

"He's agreed to help us escape. If that's…if that's what you want."

He knows it is.

She frowns.

"His deals have a price."

And he would pay any price not to see that king again.

"Please."

She finally obliges and after she's bathed in water so hot it turns her skin red and dressed in a dark gown that clings to curves he wants all for himself he drops the hat to the floor and takes her hand and leaps.

They find themselves in a land too cold. She conjures thick fur coats with a wave of her hand and laughs when he shoulders his on. Her coat is slender and gorgeous as she is, but his makes him look bulky and big but with a head too small.

She kisses him all the same, a quick peck, and he swears she almost says something more. Something about love. A word they never use because he's a cruel trickster and she's an evil monster and love isn't for their kind.

The beauty of the hat is it always brings the wearer closer to their goal than they might think. So their journey is short and they make it in companionable silence. She clutches her coat closed with one hand and the other swings with each step and even though he has pockets to keep his hands warm he leaves them out so that one might brush against hers from time to time.

Their journey ends at a steaming pond high up in a mountain so cold that their breath turns to frost. Snow falls gently and clings to their fur coats and their lips both chap.

But at the pond it is warm. Warm enough that he has to remove his coat to keep from overheating and he helps her with hers and she steals a kiss when he's close enough and then they lay their coats on the stones bordering the pond and stare at it very seriously.

For it is tucked into the mountain and the far side cannot be reached except for from the water. And on the far side is the gold they seek. It shines brighter than natural but has a luster red like spilled blood burning in a fire.

"Shall I fetch it," she offers.

He shakes his head and points to the center of the pond. It looks like three perfectly pale, round stones, but then they move and rise from the pond steaming and naked and glorious.

"I feel overdressed," she muses.

The nymphs all scowl at her and just as quickly smile at him.

"So pretty," they croon.

"Join us," they say.

"He's flattered," she insists, and her hand clasps his wrist, rooting him to the spot and making their naked glory not quite so splendid, "but I think you're plans for him aren't so kind."

They laugh and it crackles in the air unnaturally.

One treads closer on the water her breasts rising above the surface with each stroke. "You seek the rheingold," she says.

"W-we do," he stutters.

Another dips below the surface and reemerges next to her sister. "To touch its raw form comes with a cost. Can you pay it?"

He thinks of the king hovering over her. Of their daughter and her sweet smell.

"Yes," he says immediately.

She squeezes his hand. "Don't agree so easily," she warns. "What's the price ladies? A night with you wretched three?"

The third laughs and kicks her legs, churning up the water and bringing her within arm's length of the gold. "Love."

"Excuse me?"

"One must foreswear love to take the gold."

"Or one must lose the love they hold most dear."

"That is our price."

Someone's hand trembles. Maybe both of them.

He's terrified of the unnamed emotions in his heart. And more terrified of losing them with a touch.

Her eyes water.

"Don't," she pleads.

"You and Grace will be safe."

Rumpelstiltskin has promised.

"You cannot abandon me."

He knows stories of her mother. And stories of her dead lover. And he knows the cowardly father who can only do so much for the daughter he holds dear. He doesn't want to be the same.

He doesn't want to leave her.

But the king is in his head. A lurid tableau has taken shape that sickens him. He would do anything to save her from that.

"All that matters is the two of your," he says. He pulls her close. Cups her face in his hands. Her cheeks are soft but her lips are softer still and he wonders if he'll forget them when he claims the rheingold for Rumpelstiltskin.

Tears fall. Mingle. They're both crying. Her hands wrap around his and she refuses to let him go. They stare into each others eyes. Things unsaid are spoken with a look. An emotion desperately avoided becomes tangible in an instant.

"I cannot lose you," she promises.

He presses his forehead to hers. "Why?"

She knows him. Knows him better than anyone has. The why is about more than the moment. It is every moment before. It is their first meeting by the spinning wheel that churns gold. It is his arms around her as Frankenstein plays his trick. It is sighs and touches and a hazy feeling in her bed. It is smiles that are earned and treasured. It is evil receding as contentment flourishes.

"Because we're fools."

Only fools love. They agreed on this one day beneath her apple tree when she was huge with child and scowled at every word and caress.

"You might find a way." To rescue him from the fate he condemns himself too.

"I will," she promises.

The nymphs laugh at them as they abandon propriety and hold each other close.

"Join us," they demand.

They kiss once more. Sweeter than any kiss they've shared. Were he not broken it would shatter him.

He peels the clothes off his body. Stacks them on the thick fur coat. All but his breeches. He grins at her over his shoulder and she smiles sadly.

"It could be just a myth."

The nymphs disagree. Their laughter is rancorous as it bounces off the mountain.

He slides into the water.

"Jefferson." And as warm as the water is he's so cold he might die. He turns to look at her.

"I love you," she says. Then there is only smoke with a purple hue.

The nymphs screech.

The sound of her magic rings in his ear.

His stomach is a stone and if his legs stop moving he might sink to the bottom of the pond and kill his daughter's father.

She's standing by the gold now. The smoke clings to her still.

He calls her name.

She looks up. Just a moment. Her eyes are more than he can bear. Her smile is so brittle it will surely break. She says nothing more. What can be said? The sacrifice is expression enough.

She doesn't want to lose him, so she never has him.

Her fingers graze the metal.

And he expects something. Thunder. A tear in the the world. The mountain to split in two. The pond to boil. She's destroying all that kept the monster at bay inside of her so their child might have a father and there should be **some** herald for the moment.

But there's only the screeching of the nymphs and something breaking inside of him so profoundly it thunders in his ears.

She brings the gold up to eye level and peers at it.

"I expected something to actually happen," she says.

The nymphs are still screeching and with a casual wave of her hand the water finally does boil. He escapes it with only hot red skin. The nymphs aren't so lucky. Their bodies smell like soup as they float to the surface and it turns his stomach.

But not as much as the sight of her. She materializes next to him. "Why Jefferson, you're awfully underdressed don't you think?"

He is naked inside and out.

"Regina." Her name is flat.

And she does not notice.

"You really should get dresses," she says. The words roll away from her mouth. Like she's playing a game with them. "You'll catch a cold."

He dresses slowly and he has no idea if his hands are numb from the returning cold or for the creature in front of him that stares avariciously at the gold and smiles like a demon.

The way back to the portal's exit takes longer than he remembers.

"So what exactly is dear old Rumpelstiltskin giving you for this," she asks.

"An escape," he says without thought.

She laughs. "You're a portal jumper. You can escape whenever you please."

But he's been trapped.

And he says as much when he delivers the rheingold to bastard. The imp claps his hand in delight and boney fingers reach out greedily to take it, but he pulls back at the last moment. Pulls it close. To where his heart beats. If he were romantic he'd think he could feel some vestige of the woman he'd lost in the gold.

The Dark One's shimmering eyes study him.

"You knew." It's an accusation he's positive of. "That's why you sent her."

"I had an idea. I take it she's not quite the **romantic** she was."

He surges into the imp's space but the imp doesn't move. Just scowls. "Watch it **dearie**."

He wants to physically rip that word from the man's vocabulary. "Why her?"

"I need her. And you and that itty bitty baby were keeping her from her task."

She's a pawn again. Always. Once he found it amusing. Now he wants to scream.

"Do you even need this gold?"

He shrugs. Holds it to the light. "It's pretty isn't it. I might forge it into a ring. What do you think?" He holds it between to fingers like jewelry.

"I think I'd like to kill you."

He laughs and its poison, malignant and painful, in his ears. "You really do want to make that little baby an orphan don't you?"

Rumpelstiltskin grows tired of teasing him and sends him away. He wanders aimlessly, finally finding his way back to her home where her father hands him their daughter and tells him to go.

"She'll kill it if she finds it here." Like the baby is some cancer consuming the old man and his home.

He was never good enough for the daughter's he lost.

He shoulders a bag of their belongings and takes his daughter in his arms and stumbles from the home. Finds his way to the garden. The tree is gone. Only a gaping hole of dark black soil remains.

They settle into a remote and abandoned hovel two days later. He lights a fire and lays Grace on a pile of old blankets and finally allows himself to cry.

She would have laughed and called him weak perhaps. Or she might have kissed him. He could never tell. It's what fascinated him so.

####

One day he is in a room filled with a million hats feverishly sewing in the hopes that the right prick of the needle will take him home to his daughter.

The next he is in a mansion and dressed in the finest clothes and there is a lonely life warring with his own in his mind.

He staggers from the house and into the street and he sees people. Familiar people. People from lands he knows. Most from one land. Their land.

He finds his daughter and his heart might break with relief but she screams at his touch and a thin man with dead eyes grabs him by the scruff of the neck and drags him to a jail.

And then she saunters in in clothes he's never seen but with suit her just so. She's not evil so dark or the creature he once loved but a frigid bitch who laughs at the sight of him.

"Welcome to your new home," she says with flourish.

A home where no one remembers but the two of them.

And it might be romantic but the few times she seeks him out it's awful and mechanical and her touch is like that of the dead and he is gone from her side before morning can come.

She doesn't remember anything. Her curse means to bring her happiness but the gold has stolen so much of it that the curse flexes and warps and leaves her empty and alone and him mad with solace found only in the views from his telescopes.

At a distance he can pretend she's just stepped out for an hour and that his daughter is visiting a friend's.

He watches her the day her son arrives. Watches her try to love. It is like watching a child learning to walk. Stunted and slow and not quite right.

He hates her. Every day he hates her more. He can see that woman horrified at the edge of two worlds. Abandoning him to the Queen of Hearts court. The woman he's lost and the monster she's been consumed by.

He hates the monster.

Sometimes he wishes he were some knight or prince so that he could vanquish it and save the queen.

But he's a bastard and he remains holed up in his mansion watching the world drift by.

The little boy grows older. She clings tighter. He can see how desperately she wants to be a human, but the monster cannot love right and it twists her relationship until the boy disappears and returns with the Savior.

And the careful little facsimile of a happy ending she's built tumbles like a house of cards.

He laughs and rubs at his scar.

Then. One day.

The curse breaks.

####

Grace asks about the telescopes often. Why do they all follow the former mayor?

"I'm keeping an eye on her," he says as a joke. Like he could protect them from her wrath.

And he is keeping an eye on her. Watching the monster who looks like his lover move about her day. Watching her lose more and more. Until she spends all her days in her house staring at her son's empty room and trying not to cry.

She's finally learned to love again but it's too late, the boy she's practiced on has given up and though she sees him sometimes he's chosen another family over her.

It pleases him to see the monster so unhappy.

But once upon a time she wasn't a monster. Once upon a time his daughter had a mother and they put her between them in the bed and counted all her fingers and toes and laughed and then shyly looked away when they realized how pure and **good **it felt to be together.

Grace goes to school one day. She kisses him and says goodbye and something powerful in him breaks. Some wall he's built and contented himself living behind crumbles.

So he makes his way down the hill and into town. He shoves his hands in his pockets and ducks his head. He never knows who might be roaming the streets. The Red Queen or the Queen of Hearts or any number of people he's stolen from.

The street her house resides on is quiet and opulent even to look at. But people glare when they see him turn down the path to her home and he grins madly in challenge.

He knows exactly where she'll be. He's watched her long enough. She's sitting beneath her tree. The same one she fed him fruit from. The same one she uprooted and brought to her castle.

A basket is hooked over her arm and she inspects each apple before plucking it from the branch and placing it gingerly in the basket.

"Making a batch of your famous cider your Majesty?"

She freezes a moment then turns and hits him with her coldest smile.

"Jefferson, to what do I owe the displeasure?"

"I haven't seen you flying over the town on your broom. I was worried."

She laughs. "Brooms are for amateurs."

He wonders if she remembers his story of the wicked witch with skin green like grass. Was that lost with everything else?

She turns on her two inch high heels and he follows her. The entrance to her basement is a door on the side of the house. They step down into darkness. Her heels click on ancient brick and then a light flickers on over head to reveal the room where she makes her cider.

It's dusty even though it's impeccably clean. It smells earthy and sweet. There's just a hint of rot beneath. A scent that chases the monster wherever she goes.

She takes a seat at a little table and skins and cores her apples with precise movements of her knife.

"Did you miss me," she asks and it's the tone the monster uses when it thinks it's being funny.

"Yes," he says honestly.

Her knife slips and nicks her finger. She sticks it in her mouth while skewering him with a sour look.

He smiles back madly. A monster too. One she made when she abandoned him.

"You're not looking well Jefferson."

"I was going to say the same."

She returns to her work.

"Do you think cider will get your son back?"

She says nothing.

"You could always kill them and just take him."

She ignores that. Picks up another apple.

"Or you could leave."

"This is my home."

"Why?"

She looks up sharply. Her brow furrows. Her eyes turn dull.

He presses the advantage. Crosses the room. "Why do you stay?"

"Henry."

"You could start over somewhere else."

"Not without—"

"Your son."

He kneels next to her and looks into her eyes. In the low light they're black like onyx. A void.

"Tell me Regina, didn't you ever wonder why your curse rescued me from Wonderland?" He leans in close. His mouth is suddenly dry. He's never asked this question. Never pushed at the void he and Grace once filled. He swallows. "Didn't you ever wonder why I alone kept my memories?"

She blinks.

Finally, "I wanted to punish you."

But, "why?"

Again her eyes are dull. She shakes her head as if to dispel cobwebs.

"Why Regina?"

"Stop," she says. The queen's voice. Powerful and strong.

"Why did you curse yourself to happiness but end up alone with a son that hates you?"

"Stop." Softer.

"Why did you curse me to remember? Why did you know I wouldn't fight it?"

"Please," she begs softly.

"Why am I here Regina?"

She slaps him. His cheek stings. Her eyes are so blank she might be catatonic.

"Leave."

It's the monster and the woman fighting in there. Warring over the scraps that remind of him and Grace.

He wonders if he should kiss her. They all say true love will break any spell. He's never dared consider that's what he felt. The hatred for the woman is so strong he has to keep from throttling her, but the love for the woman he once knew is now real. Something he can put into words. Something he can define.

He loved her once.

He leans in. His lips are close to hers. If he kissed her would the spell be broken? He's kissed her a dozen times since she touched that gold and it felt like he was dying each time.

But now he knows. Seeing her broken. Alone. Lost. The sadness has overwhelmed the joy and he knows that's because he loves her. Because he misses her.

Just a little closer.

But her knife is at his throat, pressed against the scar where the line between life and death is at its thinnest.

"Leave now." Her voice is ice water and he shudders.

####

He feels almost brave when he flees her cellar. His hands go to his pockets. Leaves skitter past his feet. It is lunch time and Grave will be in school sipping her orange juice and chewing on a sandwich she made. Later she will visit them. The one's who cared for her for nearly thirty years. Then she'll come home and they'll hug and be half a family.

It's familiar.

But he cannot escape her dull eyes or the flash of her knife at his throat. He's wait to rescue her for nearly forty years and he finally feels brave enough to try.

Gold isn't in his shop. He finds him at the diner. He's never been inside and hunches his shoulders as he passes through the door. Everyone looks up from their meal. Emma and her parents are at the counter and track his movement. Gold's companion stares at him but Gold refuses to acknowledge him.

"Leave," he growls.

The girl starts to stand. Gold's hand stops her. "It's fine." He slowly looks up at him. "Perhaps you should take your own advice."

"Not until you and I have had a conversation."

The imp looks like a man and his voice isn't quite so high, but he raises his eyebrow and is in and instant just a few shades from the bastard he knew.

"Is that a fact?"

"You're done with her now right? Got her to do your dirty work and get you here?"

He smiles serenely.

"So let her go."

"I've never possessed her."

"You **know** what I mean." He leans down. Gets dangerously close. He knew Rumpelstiltskin and though the man before him has his memories and his face he's only got a fraction of his power. He can feel it. He's intimidating, but not to a mad man whose threatened to kill him before.

But Emma steps between them and pulls him back.

"How about we take a break," she tries to say congenially.

He jerks away from her, "How about you mind your own business."

"Says the guy who kidnapped me a while back."

"You might want to listen to her dearie."

If only he had a knife. He could slam it into Gold's throat. Would he bleed red? Or would something shimmering flow from the wound?

The other guy, Emma's father, forcibly turns him away from Gold. "You need to calm down," he demands. "Tell us what he's done and we'll take care of it."

Gold snorts in amusement.

He does too.

These people think they're in control. They think Gold's collared and Regina is beaten and they're in charge. The fools.

But they're also so **good**. Grace admires them and tells him fondly of her friend Henry and his family.

"He cursed someone before. I need him to fix it."

"Who," Emma asks.

He stares.

He won't betray her.

"Yes," Gold laughs, "who did I curse?"

He reaches for the imp's throat, "You know damn well who—"

Emma and her father pull him back, tug him all the way to the bar with commands to stop and settle and threats to lock him up.

But Snow doesn't move.

She's rooted to the floor.

Her hand is covering her mouth. Her green eyes are wide. She's that little girl again. Watching him come to visit her stepmother.

"I know you," she whispers.

"Yeah, he kidnapped you and tied you up."

"No. No, I know him from before." Its like a dream she struggles to remember and she comes closer. "You used to come to the palace. When I was a girl."

He stops fighting and Snow's family lets him go. They're enraptured by her voice.

"You would bring me gifts."

Dolls and trinkets and anything to give him a moment's peace with her.

"You," she tilts her head and shock pours onto her face like cold water, "you used to come to see Regina."

"You know Regina?"

Better than any of them once upon a time.

"Who are you," she asks.

"The Mad Hatter," Emma replies.

But he waits. He wonders how much Snow knows. How much she saw and how much actually remains.

"You were her friend."

The hands that have rested on his arms as if to hold him back are taken away.

Snow comes closer.

"You…you were so close."

He steps close. Stares down at her.

"Then help me."

She blinks and suddenly there are tears there. She shakes her head in revulsion. The idea of him and Regina sickens her.

Gold laughs. He's standing now and leaning on his cane. "There's only one thing that can help you," he goads.

"I tried that." He still wants to throttle the imp. Wants to kiss the monster. Wants to rescue the queen.

"Then I suppose it wasn't meant to be."

Leaving the diner he wonders if he really tried. He came close to kissing her but not close enough. And it's supposed to be True Love's kiss. Capital letters. True Love means the hatred that festers shouldn't exist.

She can't be the monster and the woman. That's not how it works.

And then she's standing on the street in front of him. Her arms are wrapped around her as if to keep her all together.

"Why?"

That's the only question she need ever ask. But he shakes his head, too tired to answer.

"Go home."

But she ignores him.

"You came to my home just now. Why?"

Her voice sounds young. Curious.

"You know," he finally says.

"I don't."

He walks away from her, but is chased by the click clack of her heels on twenty-eight year old pavement.

"I've asked you a question."

"And I don't really care."

He turns down the street to his home. There's a hill there and he climbs it. Trudges up with great puffs of air and his hands in fists in his coat.

"Jefferson. Please."

He pauses. Closes his eyes. Tries to reconcile the monster he despises with the woman who shed a tear as she touched the rheingold.

"Why did you come?" Her voice is a whisper. Her eyes wide. She cries so often now. The monster who learned to love. But she cannot grasp it. She cannot understand it.

"Because I miss you sometimes."

Never enough before.

It's Grace. He got her back after thirty years. Optimism, something he's never known, has taken root.

She laughs. It's derision. "You miss me," the monster asks.

Grace has taught him to hope. He steps close to her.

"Do you remember the price of touching the rheingold?"

The dullness returns. "Yes." Not the monster but not the woman.

"What is it?"

From another place her voice comes, "Forswear love."

"That is what one must do, but if they haven't? If they still love?"

The monster sheds a tear for the price paid.

"What are you saying?"

His thumb strokes her cheek but she doesn't shy away. They've kissed so many times before it doesn't frighten her. Confusion marries with the dullness in her eyes.

It's a gamble.

He's not a knight. He's hurt her and the monster has ruined him. He isn't noble. Selflessness doesn't guide his actions. He's lonely and sad and Grace has given him hope and he's never known it.

"What do you think your price was?"

His lips graze hers. A spark of warmth he cannot remember. She doesn't feel so dead.

"Love," she breaths. It's caught in his mouth.

A second later he presses his mouth to hers.

The world does not crack in two. The houses around them do not crumble. There is no great gale of wind.

But her hand is like a ghost on his waist and the kiss is salty with tears and then her fingers are digging in and never letting go and her sob is caught in his throat and one of them is trying not to fall and the other is trying not to let them.

She pushes away and fingers find her bruised lips in a daze.

He smiles because finding Grace again has taught him hope.

"Jefferson?"

And for the first time in so many years it isn't the monster with his name on it's lips.

"Hello Regina."


End file.
